The 400th anniversary of the 1611 Bible - variously known as the King James and Authorized Version - published on 2 May 1611, should stimulate renewed discussion about the important matter of the language that we use in public worship.

That translation was "appointed" to be read in churches - that is, read out loud in the context of the liturgy. But it was not only to be heard and to be appropriate, liturgically, for such reading and hearing. It was to be striking and memorable, too, because most of those who heard it, in the seventeenth century, certainly could not read it, any more than they could read the Prayer Book.

They heard these linguistically striking and memorable texts and, as the result of repetition, week by week, year by year, and on the solemn, repeated occasions of baptism, marriage and death, remembered them and came to cherish them.

Their telling and tolling phrases became part of the people's word-store and of that of the entire vernacular culture of the English-speaking world. The literate and well-educated minority - who were able to read these texts for themselves - also came to know and love that language too (such was its wide appeal), and those of them who were writers, including the greatest poets and prose-stylists in English literature, drew upon it in their own writings, through the centuries.

This was a language with a cadence of expression (which is as important as vocabulary and imagery) that appealed to what T.S. Eliot called the "auditory imagination."

When most other memories have gone, elderly folk can still recall and repeat word-perfect the biblical and liturgical language of their childhood and youth. That language of Bible and Prayer Book was made to be (and was fit to be) known by heart.

This is not only or, ultimately most importantly, an aesthetic matter. Great ideas require great words, and great words are the works of inspired wordsmiths. Their language does justice to what it expresses.

For the Christian, nothing is more important, linguistically, than the language of scripture, prayer and worship.

The dismantling of Anglicanism's rich verbal liturgical culture (and all that flowed from that, in glorious music inspired by it, hymnody, religious poetry and learned and eloquent preaching, and as the textual accompaniment of dignified and inspiring ceremonial) was undertaken in the name of a liturgical "renewal" which has been a failure.

The Western Church at large has been for forty years, and continues, mostly, to be, in denial about this colossal flop, having invested untold resources of personnel, time and money in the destruction of its linguistic-liturgical heritage, Latin and Early Modern English (the language of Shakespeare and Milton).

Geniuses of English composition like Lancelot Andrewes (who had oversight of the Authorized Version translation) and Thomas Cranmer (of The Book of Common Prayer) knew that the aural appeal of the language of worship was an essential ingredient in lifting men's and women's minds and hearts to worship, as well as teaching them the truths of the faith, and teaching them, indeed, by so lifting them up.

But the emphasis of the modern liturgical movement has been a determination to ensure that liturgical language is simplified and modernised so that it might be both comprehensible and didactic. What has been overlooked has been the need for it to be inspiring too. It is a language written as if it were a dead language.

In the pursuit of the instructive character of liturgy (however simplistically conceived), revisers have been obsessed with the principle that worshipping speech, by being cast in a version of vernacular contemporary discourse (as stilted and unnatural in its own way as Elizabethan English, but without its poetry), will thereby be accessible (on a certain literal-minded level) in order to teach - to "connect," as they would probably say - with its audience.

Further, they believe liturgical language must be easily comprehensible - preferably, immediately. So, in coming to regard the didactic element of liturgy as of primary importance, liturgical authors have also reached the point of wanting that instruction to be instantaneously available (an impossible goal, as the mystery of faith is not patient of such simplicity), through straightforward language primarily, but also through pared-down ritual actions - keeping everything as un-complex and accessible as possible.

Thereby, they miss the essential point of the subtlety, elusiveness and multi-layered quality of faith, even its difficulty, which language should reflect, not water-down or diminish for the sake of a quick fix of alleged understanding.

This "renewal" has been driven, in other words, by taking from the language of the liturgy everything that made it redolent of the numinous realm to which it should aspire. It is no wonder it has proved to be a disaster.

An unintentional parody of modern liturgical English which neatly captures some of its ham-fisted characteristics has been concocted this year by former Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion, with some other poets. They call it an "agnostic liturgy" which - astonishingly - was offered in "liturgical events" in St George's Chapel at Windsor in March and at Manchester Cathedral in May. This "liturgy" of the poets begins:

"Minister: What is this England? We have a patron saint. What does he stand for? We have a flag. Sometimes it speaks of sporting passion. Sometimes it speaks of pomp. Sometimes it speaks of grief, at memories of war. Sometimes it speaks of vicious hatred. But when it flies upon this church it speaks of something else ..."

This is, indeed, in the mode of modern liturgical writing, of the kind satirised years ago in the regular Private Eye segment on the Alternative Service Book (1980).

Infantile and crude in vocabulary, straining after a rhythmic effect (the thudding pseudo-incantation on "sometimes") producing tedium rather than transcendence, it attempts to take flight - "when it flies upon this church it speaks of something else" - and immediately falls flat on its face.

It is the writing of people who do not know what liturgical prose is, and what is more (to apply what F.R. Leavis once said of C.P. Snow's confidence in himself as a novelist) do not know they do not know, otherwise they would not so shamefacedly produce such tripe.

Almost as miserable (although the intentions are contrastingly noble) at the other end of the spectrum of liturgical composition in English today, are those who, in the Catholic Church, are struggling - but again, in ignorance of the classical tradition of English liturgical prose (in which you need to be steeped if you are going to embark on this hazardous process) - to right the wrongs of the risible Novus Ordo translations. These were imposed in the wake of the Second Vatican Council (another much-vaunted force for "renewal" that has all but destroyed its Church).

In the new English translation of the Missal, some corrections have been made: the response to "The Lord be with you" is now "And with your spirit," a marked improvement (well, anything would be) on "And also with you" (the liturgico-linguistic equivalent of "Have a nice day").

But although they have all the resources of Cranmer to draw on, these Roman Catholics stumble as they try to elevate, because, like Andrew Motion and his friends, they do not know what liturgical language is and (as their productions show) have never given the concept sustained thought.

The sing-song of "Peace to his people on earth," from the Gloria in excelsis (that great liturgical song of praise), has been replaced by "and on Earth peace to people of good will." This clumsily unpunctuated locution isn't liturgical language; it's nothing more than flat-footed prose.

Cranmer got it right, because he had the ear for liturgical vocabulary and cadence: "and in earth peace, good will towards men," and knew what a comma was. The caesura there is as important as anything else, for emphasis and for cadence. One rather fears that Cardinal George Pell and his associates on his committee would not know a caesura if they fell over one, let alone know how to apply one for aural effect.

Worst of all is when they throw all caution to the wind in their well-intentioned desire to elevate the English and give us, for "one being with the Father" in the Nicene Creed, "consubstantial with the Father." Seeking the too-fancy Latinate word from the original text, they plummet. If only they had consulted the Prayer Book! "Being of one substance with the Father ..." - perfect in sound and sense and with a seamless consistency of utterance with the rest of the text.

Getting the theology right and getting the right English word for this or that Greek and Latin one is only the beginning. It's when the genius of the prose-poet is applied to those raw materials that true liturgical language composition begins, and few there are that have that precious gift.

Beyond language, there are other invaluable elements of worship that are now discounted to the point of disappearance: the absence of language and movement in silence and stillness. Modern liturgical experts are terrified of these two "s" words and what they entail in worshipping practice.

Everyone must be chattering, and something must be happening - always. Nothing could be more alien than this busy-ness to the nurturing of the life of prayer, whether communally or individually, as all the masters of the prayer life repeatedly testify. One wants to cry out, in the midst of their hyperactive, wordy liturgies: "don't just do something, stand there!" And be silent.

This is attuned to the most telling liturgical imperative of all, the Psalmist's instruction: "Be still, and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10). "Teach us to sit still," T.S. Eliot prays in his most liturgical poem, Ash-Wednesday (1930), amidst the wordiness and movement of what Cardinal Newman called the "fever of life."

Only in such silence, waiting on God - as Simone Weil put it - and in a language redolent of transcendence, such as Cranmer's or liturgical Latin and the wondrous music attuned to both of these, can we begin the lifelong quest of listening to and talking with God, which is the life of prayer.

Everything else is an intrusion on and an interruption to the experience of the numinous.

Actions

Share

Comments (3)

Holly (Christ lives within) :

14 May 2011 6:54:14pm

Psalm 15:1-3 Good News Bible:Lord, who may enter your Temple? Who may worship on Zion, your sacred hill? Those who obey God in everything and always do what is right, whose words are true and sincere, and who 'do not slander others'.King James Bible:Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill?’ He that walketh uprightly, and walketh righteously, and speakest the truth in his heart. He 'that backbiteth not with his tongue', nor doeth evil to his neighbour, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour.Imagine telling your child to ‘backbiteth not with his tongue’. Whereas the wording of 'slander’ seems to be a commonplace and acceptable vernacular. Perhaps we would do well to return to the eloquence of the King James Bible. At least we still have the beauty of many hymns from past centuries that we still enjoy expressing in song. Some poetry into our everyday lives would also not go astray.

Georgia :

14 May 2011 10:43:49am

I laughed on reading about George Pell and his committee grappling with a caesura. I agree that the Second Vatican Council destroyed the most beautiful and transcendent parts of the liturgy. As a student in the 60's I would cringe at guitar wielding church choirs singing 'modern' hymns. I think many catholics would have felt the same. I was educated with a Benedictine order who thankfully taught us how to meditate, something that has stayed with me. We also had wonderful books in our school library including St Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, St John of God and St Teresa of Avila. My class teacher in the second year of high school taught us magnificent psalms and madrigals which we sang in three parts. It all seemed a confusing contraction to what was happening in the Vatican.

Holly (Christ lives within) :

15 May 2011 12:41:25pm

GeorgiaI read somewhere that the Coptic monasteries in Egypt and Ethiopia have celebrated the same liturgy for fifteen hundred unbroken years. It is no doubt naive, but if the original liturgies are still in existence where can we acquire a copy. Could we not refer to modern and old as with the bible? Could someone enlighten me please?

On the Wider Web

In his vastness and mobility, G.K. Chesterton continues to elude definition: He was a Catholic convert and an oracular man of letters, a pneumatic cultural presence, an aphorist with the production rate of a pulp novelist. Poetry, criticism, fiction, biography, columns, public debate - the phenomenon known to early-20th-century newspaper readers as "GKC" was half cornucopia, half content mill.

Unfortunately, coverage of this debate by the mass media is typically one-sided and emotive. Viewers, listeners, and readers are subjected to a succession of heart-rending human interest stories of sick or paralysed people who want assisted suicide. As the saying goes, "If it bleeds, it leads." These stories seem designed not only to tug on public emotion, but to tug it in one direction: toward legalization. To the extent that opposing views are aired at all, they are often caricatured as "religious" - despite the fact that legalization has long been opposed by secular bodies like the World Medical Association.

Best of abc.net.au

Meditations for Holy Week

One of the world's most influential theologians explores Jesus's journey into a far country.

Subscribe

How Does this Site Work?

This site is where you will find ABC stories, interviews and videos on the subject of Religion & Ethics. As you browse through the site, the links you follow will take you to stories as they appeared in their original context, whether from ABC News, a TV program or a radio interview. Please enjoy.